February 29, 2016

(February 29, 2016) New
article from Maye Research Group draws on nanoscience, self-assembly

Chemists in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and
Sciences have made a transformational advance in an alternate lighting
source—one that doesn’t require a battery or a plug.

Associate Professor Mathew Maye and a team of researchers
from Syracuse, along with collaborators from Connecticut College, have recently
demonstrated high-efficient energy transfer between semiconductor quantum rods
and luciferase enzymes. Quantum rods and luciferase enzymes are nanomaterials
and biomaterials, respectively. When combined correctly, these materials
produce bioluminescence—except, instead of coming from a biomaterial, such as a
firefly enzyme, the light eminates from a nanomaterial, and is green, orange,
red, or near-infrared in color.

The findings are the subject of a recent article in ACS Nano
(American Chemical Society, 2016).

“Think of our system as a design project," Maye says.
"Our goal has been to build a nano-biosystem that's versatile enough to
teach us a lot, while allowing us to overcome significant challenges in the
field and have practical applications. The design involves materials from our
chemistry and biology labs, as well as various nanoscience and self-assembly
tools. It's a true team effort with multiple collaborations.”

Maye illustrates his point by referencing quantum rods, each
of which is four nanometers wide and 50 nanometers long. (A nanometer is 1 billionth
of a meter.) “The rods were chemically synthesized with amazing precision,” he
says. “To get the best information, we realized that we needed at least two
different types of rods, each with three synthetically tuned variations, and up
to 10 different assembly conditions.”

Having a wide range of variables has enabled Maye and his
team to learn more about the science of nano-biology energy transfer.

(February 29, 2016) Duke
University bioengineers design cells that die if they leave the confines of
their capsule

Duke University researchers have engineered microbes that
can’t run away from home; those that do will quickly die without protective
proteins produced by their peers.

Dubbed “swarmbots” for their ability to survive in a crowd,
the system could be used as a safeguard to stop genetically modified organisms
from escaping into the surrounding environment. The approach could also be used
to reliably program colonies of bacteria to respond to changes in their
surrounding environment, such as releasing specific molecules on cue.

The system is described online February 29, 2016, in
Molecular Systems Biology.

“Safety has always been a concern when modifying bacteria
for medical applications because of the danger of uncontrolled proliferation,”
said Lingchong You, the Paul Ruffin Scarborough Associate Professor of
Engineering at Duke University.

“Other labs have addressed this issue by making cells rely
on unnatural amino acids for survival or by introducing a ‘kill switch’ that is
activated by some chemical,” You said. “Ours is the first example that uses
collective survival as a way of intrinsically realizing this safeguard.”

In the experiment, You and his colleagues engineered a
non-pathogenic strain of E. coli to produce a chemical called AHL. They also
modified the cells so that, in high enough concentrations, AHL causes them to
produce an antidote to antibiotics. When the population of E. coli is dense
enough, the antidote keeps them alive, even in the presence of antibiotics that
would otherwise kill them.

The researchers then confined a sufficiently large number of
the bacteria to a capsule and bathed it in antibiotics. As long as the E. coli
remained inside their container where their density was high, they all
survived. But if individual bacteria escaped, they were quickly killed off by
the antibiotic.

(February 29, 2016) The chair was made under the impression of sculptures of Naum Gabo but also based on investigation of the mathematical principles of optimum structures. These principles arrange configurations of frame members for a minimum quantity of material to endure a given load. The whole structure of the chair was created according it for balancing external load of weight of sitting person by a system of internal forces. At the same time it was carefully measured and created according proportions and forms of human body to provide a high level of functionality and usability.source >>

STAT3
deacetylation by HDAC5 is a prerequisite for central leptin action

and our ability
to stay lean.

(February 29, 2016) A
team of researchers at Helmholtz Zentrum München, Technische Universität
München and the German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD) has identified a new
mechanism that regulates the effect of the satiety hormone leptin. The study
published in the journal ‘Nature Communications’ identified the enzyme HDAC5 as
key factor in our control of body weight and food intake and potential target
against the Yoyo dieting effect.

higher overall HDAC5
immunorreactivity (nature.com)

Why do we get fat and why is it so difficult for so many
people to keep off excess weight? Researchers in the Reseach Unit Neurobiology
of Diabetes led by Dr. Paul Pfluger and at the Institute for Diabetes and
Obesity led by Prof. Dr. Matthias Tschöp have now identified a new component in
the complex fine-tuning of body weight and food intake. They found that the
enzyme histone deacetylase 5 (HDAC5) has a significant influence on the effect
of the hormone leptin*. This hormone plays a crucial role in triggering satiety
and thus on how the body adapts to a changing food environment.

New technologies are starved for efficient and inexpensive
catalysts. The best materials are made up of nanoparticles, whose properties are
the result of their small size. The single catalyst particles have, however, an
ugly tendency to cluster into larger particles, thereby reducing their
effectiveness. A group of scientists from the International School of Advanced
Studies in Trieste and the DEMOCRITOS centre of the Istituto Officina dei
Materiali of the Italian National Research Council (IOM-CNR), with the
collaboration of other institutions, have developed a material that maintains
the stability of a “dispersed” catalyst, thus maximising the efficiency of the
process and decreasing costs and wastage.

(February 29, 2016) VTT
Technical Research Centre of Finland and Aalto University, together with a
group of contributing local companies, are starting a new Tekes-funded project
on optical switching and transmission technologies to improve the scalability
and energy-efficiency of data centres and 5G networks where the volumes of data
transfer grow exponentially.

The way we use and share information and entertainment
content are changing from local media hardware into distributed content with on-line
and mobile access. In entertainment, DVDs and CDs have already been replaced by
streaming and on-demand movie services. Data storage and bookkeeping are moving
into cloud with on-line mobile access and internet of things will soon connect
everyday devices into the local or global network.

Already before the onset of this transition, the volume of
data transfer was increasing exponentially and the capacity of the data centres
was doubled every 18 months. In 2014 the data centres in EU alone consumed about
120 TWh of energy, roughly equivalent to the full capacity of fourteen 1 GW
nuclear reactors.

With the current data centre networking technologies,
addressing the exponential increase in data volume would lead to an enormous
magnification of the cost.

The new Tekes-funded project, Optical Information Processing
for Energy-Efficient Data Centres (OPEC), focuses on the development of novel
optical components and technologies on VTT's proprietary silicon photonics
platform, as well as new silicon wafer production and precision assembly
concepts. This is done in close collaboration with Nokia, Rockley Photonics and
other Finnish technology companies aiming to meet the industrial demands of
data centres and 5G networks.

Future challenges are approached by developing graphene and
other layered 2D material based active photonic components in collaboration
between VTT and Aalto University to achieve performance beyond the theoretical
limit of the traditional materials. The project also explores the feasibility
of integrated photonics in analog signal transfer and manipulation, such as
radio-over-fiber and microwave beam steering in mobile link stations.

The project is supported financially and technologically by
Nokia, Rockley Photonics, Okmetic, nLight, Ginolis and Picosun. It is part of
Tekes' 5th Gear programme that launched several new projects early 2016 in
connection with Business from Digitalization call.

(February 29, 2016) EPFL
researchers have developed conductive tracks that can be bent and stretched up
to four times their original length. They could be used in artificial skin,
connected clothing and on-body sensors.

Conductive tracks are usually hard printed on a board. But
those recently developed at EPFL are altogether different: they are almost as
flexible as rubber and can be stretched up to four times their original length
and in all directions. And they can be stretched a million times without
cracking or interrupting their conductivity. The invention is described in an
article published today in the journal Advanced Materials.

Both solid and flexible, this new metallic and partially
liquid film offers a wide range of possible applications. It could be used to
make circuits that can be twisted and stretched – ideal for artificial skin on
prosthetics or robotic machines. It could also be integrated into fabric and
used in connected clothing. And because it follows the shape and movements of
the human body, it could be used for sensors designed to monitor particular
biological functions.

“We can come up with all sorts of uses, in forms that are
complex, moving or that change over time,” said Hadrien Michaud, a PhD student
at the Laboratory for Soft Bioelectronic Interfaces (LSBI) and one of the study
authors.

Extensive research has gone into developing an elastic
electronic circuit. It is a real challenge, as the components traditionally
used to make circuits are rigid. Applying liquid metal to a thin film in
polymer supports with elastic properties naturally seems like a promising
approach.

Thin and reliable

Owing to the high surface tension of some of these liquid
metals, experiments conducted so far have only produced relatively thick
structures. “Using the deposition and structuring methods that we developed,
it’s possible to make tracks that are very narrow – several hundredths of a
nanometer thick – and very reliable,” said Stéphanie Lacour, holder of the
Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Neuroprosthetic Technology and who runs the lab.

View the video
above to hear more about the new material discovered by Menon

that could upstage
graphene. Video by REVEAL Research Media.

(February 29, 2016) A
new one atom-thick flat material that could upstage the wonder material
graphene and advance digital technology has been discovered by a physicist at
the University of Kentucky working in collaboration with scientists from
Daimler in Germany and the Institute for Electronic Structure and Laser (IESL)
in Greece.

The atoms in the
new structure are arranged in a hexagonal pattern as in graphene, but that

is where the
similarity ends. The three elements forming the new material all have different

sizes; the bonds
connecting the atoms are also different. As a result, the sides of the

hexagons formed
by these atoms are unequal, unlike in graphene.

Reported in Physical Review B, Rapid Communications, the new
material is made up of silicon, boron and nitrogen — all light, inexpensive and
earth abundant elements — and is extremely stable, a property many other
graphene alternatives lack.

"We used simulations to see if the bonds would break or
disintegrate — it didn't happen," said Madhu Menon, a physicist in the UK
Center for Computational Sciences. "We heated the material up to
1,000-degree Celsius and it still didn't break."

Image courtesy
of Madhu Menon

Using state-of-the-art theoretical computations, Menon and
his collaborators Ernst Richter from Daimler and a former UK Department of
Physics and Astronomy post-doctoral research associate, and Antonis Andriotis
from IESL, have demonstrated that by combining the three elements, it is
possible to obtain a one atom-thick, truly 2D material with properties that can
be fine-tuned to suit various applications beyond what is possible with
graphene.

Electrons can extend our view of microscopic objects well
beyond what’s possible with visible light—all the way to the atomic scale. A
popular method in electron microscopy for looking at tough, resilient materials
in atomic detail is called STEM, or scanning transmission electron microscopy,
but the highly focused beam of electrons used in STEM can also easily destroy
delicate samples.

This is why using electrons to image biological or other
organic compounds, such as chemical mixes that include lithium—a light metal
that is a popular element in next-generation battery research—requires a very
low electron dose.

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed a new imaging technique,
tested on samples of nanoscale gold and carbon, that greatly improves images of
light elements using fewer electrons.

The newly demonstrated technique, dubbed MIDI-STEM, for
matched illumination and detector interferometry STEM, combines STEM with an
optical device called a phase plate that modifies the alternating
peak-to-trough, wave-like properties (called the phase) of the electron beam.

This animated
representation shows a Berkeley Lab-developed technique called

MIDI-STEM (at
right) and conventional STEM (at left) that does not use a ringed object

called a phase
plate. In MIDI-STEM, an interference pattern (bottom right) introduced by

the phase plate
(top right) interacts with the electron beam before it travels through

a sample (the blue
wave in the center). As the phase of the sample

(the distance
between the peaks and valleys of the blue wave) changes,

the electrons
passing through the sample are affected and can be measured

as a pattern
(bottom right). (Colin Ophus/Berkeley Lab)

This phase plate modifies the electron beam in a way that
allows subtle changes in a material to be measured, even revealing materials
that would be invisible in traditional STEM imaging.

Another electron-based method, which researchers use to
determine the detailed structure of delicate, frozen biological samples, is
called cryo-electron microscopy, or cryo-EM. While single-particle cryo-EM is a
powerful tool—it was named as science journal Nature’s 2015 Method of the
Year—it typically requires taking an average over many identical samples to be
effective. Cryo-EM is generally not useful for studying samples with a mixture
of heavy elements (for example, most types of metals) and light elements like
oxygen and carbon.

February 26, 2016

The MIT team has
achieved the thinnest and lightest complete solar cells ever made,

they say. To
demonstrate just how thin and lightweight the cells are, the researchers

draped a working
cell on top of a soap bubble, without popping the bubble.

Photo: Joel Jean
and Anna Osherov

(February 26, 2016) Ultrathin,
flexible photovoltaic cells from MIT research could find many new uses.

Imagine solar cells so thin, flexible, and lightweight that
they could be placed on almost any material or surface, including your hat,
shirt, or smartphone, or even on a sheet of paper or a helium balloon.

Researchers at MIT have now demonstrated just such a
technology: the thinnest, lightest solar cells ever produced. Though it may
take years to develop into a commercial product, the laboratory
proof-of-concept shows a new approach to making solar cells that could help
power the next generation of portable electronic devices.

The new process is described in a paper by MIT professor
Vladimir Bulović, research scientist Annie Wang, and doctoral student Joel
Jean, in the journal Organic Electronics.

Bulović, MIT’s associate dean for innovation and the
Fariborz Maseeh (1990) Professor of Emerging Technology, says the key to the
new approach is to make the solar cell, the substrate that supports it, and a
protective overcoating to shield it from the environment, all in one process.
The substrate is made in place and never needs to be handled, cleaned, or
removed from the vacuum during fabrication, thus minimizing exposure to dust or
other contaminants that could degrade the cell’s performance.

“It could be so
light that you don’t even know it’s there, on your shirt or on your notebook,”

Vladimir Bulović
says. “These cells could simply be an add-on to existing structures.”

Photo: Joel Jean
and Anna Osherov

“The innovative step is the realization that you can grow
the substrate at the same time as you grow the device,” Bulović says.

In this initial proof-of-concept experiment, the team used a
common flexible polymer called parylene as both the substrate and the
overcoating, and an organic material called DBP as the primary light-absorbing
layer. Parylene is a commercially available plastic coating used widely to
protect implanted biomedical devices and printed circuit boards from
environmental damage. The entire process takes place in a vacuum chamber at
room temperature and without the use of any solvents, unlike conventional
solar-cell manufacturing, which requires high temperatures and harsh chemicals.
In this case, both the substrate and the solar cell are “grown” using
established vapor deposition techniques.

(February 26, 2016) Discovery
opens doors to creation of biological supercomputers that are about the size of
a book

The substance that provides energy to all the cells in our
bodies, Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), may also be able to power the next
generation of supercomputers. That is what an international team of researchers
led by Prof. Nicolau, the Chair of the Department of Bioengineering at McGill,
believe.

They’ve published an article on the subject this week in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), in which they describe
a model of a biological computer that they have created that is able to process
information very quickly and accurately using parallel networks in the same way
that massive electronic super computers do.

Except that the model bio supercomputer they have created is
a whole lot smaller than current supercomputers, uses much less energy, and
uses proteins present in all living cells to function.

Doodling on the back
of an envelope

“We’ve managed to create a very complex network in a very
small area,” says Dan Nicolau, Sr. with a laugh. He began working on the idea
with his son, Dan Jr., more than a decade ago and was then joined by colleagues
from Germany, Sweden and The Netherlands, some 7 years ago. “This started as a
back of an envelope idea, after too much rum I think, with drawings of what
looked like small worms exploring mazes.”

The model bio-supercomputer that the Nicolaus (father and
son) and their colleagues have created came about thanks to a combination of
geometrical modelling and engineering knowhow (on the nano scale). It is a
first step, in showing that this kind of biological supercomputer can actually
work.

The circuit the researchers have created looks a bit like a
road map of a busy and very organized city as seen from a plane. Just as in a
city, cars and trucks of different sizes, powered by motors of different kinds,
navigate through channels that have been created for them, consuming the fuel
they need to keep moving.

(February 26, 2016) A
quick, cheap and highly efficient method for producing a water-purifying
chemical has been developed by researchers at Cardiff University.

The team, from the Cardiff Catalysis Institute, Lehigh
University and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the
USA, have developed a new group of catalysts that can produce hydrogen peroxide
(H2O2) on-demand in a simple one-step process, opening up the possibility of
manufacturing the chemical in some of the poorest, remote and disaster-stricken
areas of the world.

Their results have been published in the journal Science.

“Using our new catalyst, we’ve created a method of
efficiently producing H2O2 on-demand in a quick, one-step process,” said
co-author of the study Dr Simon Freakley from the Cardiff Catalysis Institute.

“Being able to produce H2O2 directly opens up a whole host
of possibilities, most notably in the field of water purification where it
would be indispensable to be able to produce the chemical on-site where safe
and clean drinking water is at a premium.”

Over four million tonnes of H2O2 are produced by industry
each year, predominantly through a large, multi-step process, which requires
highly concentrated solutions of H2O2 to be transported before dilution at the
point of use. Current uses of H2O2 include paper bleaching, disinfecting and
water treatment and in the chemical synthesis industry.

Though centralised systems adequately supply clean water to
billions of households around the world, many people still do not have access
to these large-scale water supplies and must therefore rely on decentralised
systems for a safe source of water.

February 25, 2016

(February 25, 2016) This
week marks the official launch of the software product from TriboForm
Engineering, a University of Twente start-up. Launching customers Volvo,
Mercedes-Benz, and Skoda develop components such as automotive bonnets and
doors using software produced by the fast-growing start-up from Enschede.
Director and founder Jan Harmen Wiebenga calls it a dream. ‘When we see those
cars on the road, we realize we contributed to making them. That gives us a
great feeling.’

Demand for the TriboForm software is tremendous. The
start-up now serves a large part of the European automotive industry. TriboForm
produces software packages for friction modelling and predicting tribological
behaviour. Tribology is a branch of mechanical engineering that describes the
contact between materials under different conditions. The software is used in
the development and production of new automotive parts.

The official launch of the product will take place this week
in Germany, the heart of the global automotive industry. TriboForm will launch
the product at the Triboforum 2016, a triennial industry conference. The
company will do so together with the principal engineers from Daimler AG, the
parent company of Mercedes-Benz. At the request of the Volkswagen group, a
pre-presentation of the software was held in Hannover with experts from
Porsche, Seat, Audi, Volkswagen and Skoda. It shows the great interest for the
software.

A graphen
nanoribbon was anchored at the tip of a atomic force microscope

and dragged over a
gold surface. The observed friction force was extremely low.

(Image: University
of Basel, Department of Physics)

(February 25, 2016) Graphene,
a modified form of carbon, offers versatile potential for use in coating
machine components and in the field of electronic switches. An international
team of researchers led by physicists at the University of Basel have been
studying the lubricity of this material on the nanometer scale. Since it
produces almost no friction at all, it could drastically reduce energy loss in
machines when used as a coating, as the researchers report in the journal
Science.

In future, graphene could be used as an extremely thin
coating, resulting in almost zero energy loss between mechanical parts. This is
based on the exceptionally high lubricity – or so-called superlubricity – of
modified carbon in the form of graphene. Applying this property to mechanical
and electromechanical devices would not only improve energy efficiency but also
considerably extend the service life of the equipment.

Fathoming out the causes of the lubricant behavior

An international community of physicists from the University
of Basel and the Empa have studied the above-average lubricity of graphene
using a two-pronged approach combining experimentation and computation. To do
this, they anchored two-dimensional strips of carbon atoms – so-called graphene
nanoribbons – to a sharp tip and dragged them across a gold surface.
Computer-based calculations were used to investigate the interactions between
the surfaces as they moved across one another. Using this approach, the
research team led by Prof. Ernst Meyer at the University of Basel is hoping to
fathom out the causes of superlubricity; until now, little research has been
carried out in this area.

a structural
schematic of the TAT crystal packing geometry and direction of charge
separation.

A new property
discovered in the organic semiconductor molecule could lead to more efficient

and cost-effective
materials for use in cell phone and laptop displays, among other applications. Courtesy
UMass Amherst/Mike Barnes

(February 25, 2016) Chemists
and polymer scientists collaborating at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
report in Nature Communications this week that they have for the first time
identified an unexpected property in an organic semiconductor molecule that
could lead to more efficient and cost-effective materials for use in cell phone
and laptop displays, for example, and in opto-electronic devices such as
lasers, light-emitting diodes and fiber optic communications.

The researchers saw not only efficient separation of charges
in TAT, but a very specific directionality that Barnes says “is quite useful.
It adds control, so we’re not at the mercy of random movement, which is
inefficient. Our paper describes an aspect of the nanoscopic physics within
individual crystals, a structure that will make it easier to use this molecule
for new applications such as in devices that use polarized light input for
optical switching. We and others will immediately exploit this directionality.”

He adds, “Observing the intrinsic charge separation doesn’t
happen in polymers, so far as we know it only happens in this family of small
organic molecule crystalline assemblies or nanowires. In terms of application
we are now exploring ways to arrange the crystals in a uniform pattern and from
there we can turn things on or off depending on optical polarization, for
example.”

(February 25, 2016) It
is commonly believed that companies are only committed to environmental and
social issues if this contributes to increase their profits. A new study now
shows that this stereotype is not true at least for large companies in
developed countries. The driving force behind sustainability management
activities of large companies is mainly the pursuit of social acceptance.
Conversely, profit maximisation plays a subordinate role. This counterintuitive
result of a broad empirical study has recently been published in the Journal of
Business Ethics by Prof. Dr. Stefan Schaltegger (Leuphana University of
Lüneburg) and Prof. Dr. Jacob Hörisch (Alanus University) (DOI: 10.1007 /
210551-015-2854-3).

The study is based on a survey of 432 of the largest
companies in ten industrial countries in Europe, North America and Asia.
Sustainability managers were asked about the aims, actors, methods and effects
of the company’s sustainability management activities. The survey results are
clear: A legitimacy-oriented perspective is prevalent not only in the aims, but
also in the organisational implementation and the application of sustainability
management measures. By contrast, objectives and practices following a more
profit-driven logic of action were regarded as less important by the majority
of respondents.

Already for developing sustainability management goals, the
pursuit of social recognition plays a greater role than the profit motive. This
may be because the impact from legitimacy-oriented players such as media or
NGOs on corporate sustainability activities is perceived to be much higher,
than that of financially focussed external stakeholders such as banks, credit
rating agencies or shareholders.

A similar picture emerges from the choice of sustainability
activities. For the majority of businesses, legitimacy-driven measures, such as
improving employee motivation and the reputation of the company are more
important than profit maximisation and cost reduction. This is also reflected
in the organisational and personnel anchoring within the company: PR and
communication departments, as well as legal departments are much more
frequently entrusted with tasks of sustainability management than finance,
accounting and controlling.

(February 25, 2016) Researchers
from Sheffield Robotics have applied a novel method of automatically
programming and controlling a swarm of up to 600 robots to complete a specified
set of tasks simultaneously.

This reduces human error and therefore many of the bugs that
can occur in programming, making it more user-friendly and reliable than
previous techniques. This could be particularly advantageous in areas where
safety of using robotics is a concern, for example, in driverless cars.

The team of researchers from the University of Sheffield
applied an automated programming method previously used in manufacturing to
experiments using up to 600 of their 900-strong robot swarm, one of the largest
in the world, in research published in the March issue of Swarm Intelligence journal.

Swarm robotics studies how large groups of robots can
interact with each other in simple ways to solve relatively complex tasks
cooperatively.

Previous research has used ‘trial and error’ methods to
automatically program groups of robots, which can result in unpredictable, and
undesirable, behaviour. Moreover, the resulting source code is time-consuming
to maintain, which makes it difficult to use in the real-world.

The supervisory control theory used for the first time with
a swarm of robots in Sheffield reduces the need for human input and therefore,
error. The researchers used a graphical tool to define the tasks they wanted
the robots to achieve, a machine then automatically programmed and translated
this to the robots.

This program uses a form of linguistics, comparable to using
the alphabet in the English language. The robots use their own alphabet to
construct words, with the ‘letters’ of these words relating to what the robots
perceive and to the actions they choose to perform. The supervisory control
theory helps the robots to choose only those actions that eventually result in
valid ‘words’. Hence, the behaviour of the robots is guaranteed to meet the
specification.

We are increasingly reliant on software and technology, so
machines that can program themselves and yet behave in predictable ways within
parameters set by humans, are less error-prone and therefore safer and more
reliable.

This image
illustrates pumping in two directions at once with an enzyme patch. A patch of
enzymes

immobilized on a
surface acts as a fluid pump. The fluid, and the small particles (green
spheres)

carried by the
fluid, can simultaneously be pumped away from the patch (blue) in some parts of
the

chamber and toward
the patch (red) in other locations. This behavior changes over time and is due

to the changes in
fluid density that the reaction produces. Image: University of Pittsburgh

(February 25, 2016) A
new way to use the chemical reactions of certain enzymes to trigger
self-powered mechanical movement has been developed by a team of researchers at
Penn State University and the University of Pittsburgh. A paper describing the
team's research, titled "Convective flow reversal in self-powered enzyme
micropumps," is published this week in the journal Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.

"These pumps provide precise control over flow rate
without the aid of an external power source and are capable of turning on in
response to specific chemicals in solution," said Ayusman Sen,
Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at Penn State. "They also can remain
viable and capable of turning on even after prolonged storage." Sen and
Penn State graduate student Isamar Ortiz did the research team's experiments,
which reveal that "simple reactions triggered by enzymes can be used to
combine sensing and fluid pumping into single non-mechanical, self-powered,
nano/microscale pumps that precisely control flow rate, and that turn on in
response to specific stimuli," said Sen, who also made the initial
discovery of enzyme pumps.

Potential uses of the self-powered enzyme micropumps include
detecting substances, moving particles to build small structures, and
delivering medications. "One potential use is the release of insulin to a
diabetes patient from a reservoir at a rate proportional to the concentration
of glucose in the person's blood," Sen said. "Another example is an enzyme
pump that is triggered by nerve toxins to release an antidote agent to
decontaminate and treat an exposed person. Also, because enzyme pumps can pump
particles suspended in a fluid, it also should be possible to use them to
assemble or disassemble small structures in specific locations by directional
pumping."

(February 25, 2016) A
swimming microrobot formed from liquid-crystal elastomers is driven by a
light-induced peristaltic motion

Ciliates can do amazing things: Being so tiny, the water in
which they live is like thick honey to these microorganisms. In spite of this,
however, they are able to self-propel through water by the synchronized
movement of thousands of extremely thin filaments on their outer skin, called
cilia. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in
Stuttgart are now moving robots that are barely perceptible to the human eye in
a similar manner through liquids. For these microswimmers, the scientists are
neither employing complex driving elements nor external forces such as magnetic
fields. The team of scientists headed by Peer Fischer have built a
ciliate-inspired model using a material that combines the properties of liquid
crystals and elastic rubbers, rendering the body capable of self-propelling
upon exposure to green light. Mini submarines navigating the human body and
detecting and curing diseases may still be the stuff of science fiction, but
applications for the new development in Stuttgart could see the light-powered
materials take the form of tiny medical assistants at the end of an endoscope.

Their tiny size makes life extremely difficult for swimming
microorganisms. As their movement has virtually no momentum, the friction
between the water and their outer skin slows them down considerably – much like
trying to swim through thick honey. The viscosity of the medium also prevents
the formation of turbulences, something that could transfer the force to the
water and thereby drive the swimmer. For this reason, the filaments beat in a
coordinated wave-like movement that runs along the entire body of the
single-celled organism, similar to the legs of a centipede. These waves move
the liquid along with them so that the ciliate – measuring roughly 100
micrometres, i.e. a tenth of a millimetre, as thick as a human hair – moves
through the liquid.

The soft,
light-sensitive microrobot is moved by a dynamic, structured light field.

The swimming body
consists of a mixture of liquid-crystal molecules (LC) and dye molecules that

heats up when
illuminated. This causes the liquid-crystal molecules to bend so that the
material

deforms and
protrusions form on the illuminated surface. In a moving light field, the
protrusions move

“Our aim was to imitate this type of movement with a
microrobot,” says Stefano Palagi, first author of the study at the Max Planck
Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, which also included
collaborating scientists from the Universities of Cambridge, Stuttgart and
Florence. Fischer, who is also a Professor for Physical Chemistry at the
University of Stuttgart, states that it would be virtually impossible to build
a mechanical machine at the length scale
of the ciliate that also replicates its
movement, as it would need to have hundreds of individual actuators, not to
mention their control and energy supply.

(February 24, 2016) Researchers
create a system that can scale-up production of the smallest – but among the
most useful – materials of this century

Nanoparticles – tiny particles 100,000 times smaller than
the width of a strand of hair – can be found in everything from drug delivery
formulations to pollution controls on cars to HD TV sets. With special
properties derived from their tiny size and subsequently increased surface
area, they’re critical to industry and scientific research.

They’re also expensive and tricky to make.

Now, researchers at USC have created a new way to
manufacture nanoparticles that will transform the process from a painstaking,
batch-by-batch drudgery into a large-scale, automated assembly line.

The method, developed by a team led by Noah Malmstadt of the
USC Viterbi School of Engineering and Richard Brutchey of the USC Dornsife
College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, was published in Nature Communications
on Feb. 23.

Schematic of the
parallel network assembled by connecting a distribution

manifold to four
droplet generators. The continuous phase was linked using

low resistance
jumper tubing (ID=762 μm) and the dispersed phase was

linked using
various lengths of tubing (ID=127 μm) to create a gradient

of resistances
across the four branches. (Nature.com)

Consider, for example, gold nanoparticles. They have been
shown to be able to easily penetrate cell membranes without causing any damage
– an unusual feat, given that most penetrations of cell membranes by foreign
objects can damage or kill the cell. Their ability to slip through the cell’s
membrane makes gold nanoparticles ideal delivery devices for medications to
healthy cells, or fatal doses of radiation to cancer cells.

However, a single milligram of gold nanoparticles currently
costs about $80 (depending on the size of the nanoparticles). That places the
price of gold nanoparticles at $80,000 per gram – while a gram of pure, raw
gold goes for about $50.

Forget intelligence or wisdom. A muscular physique might
just be a more important attribute when it comes to judging a person’s
leadership potential.

Take Arnold Schwarzenegger whose past popularity was a
result of his physical prowess as a “Mr. Universe” bodybuilder. In the 2003’s
historic recall election, the physically imposing Schwarzenegger easily
defeated California Governor Gray Davis who is arguably weaker looking than
“The Terminator.”

Coincidence? Maybe. But now there is also real evidence that
physical strength matters.

Study participants in a series of experiments conducted by
Cameron Anderson, a professor of management at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of
Business, and Aaron Lukaszewski, an assistant professor at Oklahoma State
University, overwhelmingly equated physical strength with higher status and
leadership qualities. The paper, “The role of physical formidability in human
social status allocation,” is forthcoming in the Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology.

The experiments first measured the strength of various men
using a handheld, hydraulic Dynamometer that measures chest and arm strength in
kilograms or pounds. After being rated
on strength, each man was photographed from the knees up in a white tank shirt
to reveal his shoulder, chest, and arm muscles. This way, researchers were able
to control for reactions to height and attire rather than strength.

February 22, 2016

(February 22, 2016) A
photo-electrochemical cell has been developed at TU Wien (Vienna). It can
chemically store the energy of ultraviolet light even at high temperatures.

Nature shows us how it is done: Plants can absorb sunlight
and store its energy chemically. Imitating this on large industrial scale,
however, is difficult. Photovoltaics convert sunlight to electricity, but at
high temperatures, the efficiency of solar cells decreases. Electrical energy
can be used to produce hydrogen, which can then be stored – but the energy
efficiency of this process is limited.

Scientists at TU Wien (Vienna) have now developed a new
concept: By combining highly specialised
new materials, they have managed to combine high temperature photovoltaics with
an electrochemical cell. Ultraviolet light can be directly used to pump oxygen
ions through a solid oxide electrolyte. The energy of the UV light is stored
chemically. In the future, this method could also be used to split water into
hydrogen and oxygen.

Special Materials for
High Temperatures

As a student at TU Wien, Georg Brunauer started pondering possible combinations of
photovoltaics and electrochemical storage. The feasibility of such a system
depends crucially on whether it is able to work at high temperatures. “This
would allow us to concentrate sunlight with mirrors and build large-scale
plants with a high rate of efficiency”, says Brunauer. Common photovoltaic cells, however, only work well up to 100°C.
In a solar concentrator plant, much higher temperatures would be reached.

Heated reactor (TU
Wien)

While working on his doctoral thesis, Brunauer managed to
put his ideas into practice. The key to success was an unusual choice of
materials. Instead of the ordinary silicon based photovoltaics, special metal oxides -
so-called perovskites - were used. By combining several different metal oxides,
Brunauer managed to assemble a cell which combines photovoltaics and
electrochemistry. Several research partners at TU Wien contributed to the
project. Georg Brunauer is a member of Prof. Karl Ponweiser’s research team at
the Institute for Energy Systems and Thermodynamics, Prof. Jürgen Fleig’s group
(Chemical Technologies and Analytics) and the Institute for Atomic and
Subatomic physics were involved as well.

Creating Voltage and
Pumping Ions

“Our cell consists of two different parts – a photoelectric
part on top and an electrochemical part below”, says Georg Brunauer. “In the
upper layer, ultraviolet light creates free charge carriers, just like in a
standard solar cell.” The electrons in this layer are immediately removed and
travel to the bottom layer of the electrochemical cell. Once there, these
electrons are used to ionize oxygen to negative oxygen ions, which can then
travel through a membrane in the electrochemical part of the cell.

“This is the crucial photoelectrochemical step, which we
hope will lead to the possibility of splitting water and producing hydrogen”,
says Brunauer. In its first evolution step, the cell works as a UV-light driven
oxygen pump. It yields an open-current voltage of up to 920 millivolts at a
temperature of 400°C.

(February 22, 2016) Algorithm
does not work intuitive – just as quantum physics

Quantum physics is counterintuitive. Many of the phenomena
in the quantum world do not have a classical analog: In the quantum world, a
coin is not either heads or tails – but can have both properties at the same
time. For a better understanding of such phenomena, laboratory experiments are
indispensable. Quantum physicist Mario Krenn and his colleagues in the group of
Anton Zeilinger from the Faculty of Physics at the University of Vienna and the
Austrian Academy of Sciences have developed an algorithm which designs new
useful quantum experiments. As the computer does not rely on human intuition,
it finds novel unfamiliar solutions. The research has just been published in
the journal Physical Review Letters.

The idea was developed when the physicists wanted to create
new quantum states in the laboratory, but were unable to conceive of methods to
do so. “After many unsuccessful attempts to come up with an experimental
implementation, we came to the conclusion that our intuition about these
phenomena seems to be wrong. We realized that in the end we were just trying
random arrangements of quantum building blocks. And that is what a computer can
do as well – but thousands of times faster”, explains Mario Krenn, PhD student
in Anton Zeilinger’s group and first author research.

Rice University bioengineering researchers have modified a
commercial-grade CO2 laser cutter to create OpenSLS, an open-source, selective
laser sintering platform that can print intricate 3-D objects from powdered
plastics and biomaterials. The system costs at least 40 times less than its
commercial counterparts and allows researchers to work with their own
specialized powdered materials.

The design specs and performance of Rice’s OpenSLS platform,
an open-source device similar to commercially available selective laser
sintering (SLS) platforms, are described in an open-access paper published in
PLOS ONE. OpenSLS, which was built using low-cost, open-source
microcontrollers, cost less than $10,000 to build; commercial SLS platforms
typically start around $400,000 and can cost up to $1 million.

Rice University’s
Ian Kinstlinger with a nylon model of the arterial system of a mouse liver

that he printed
with OpenSLS, an open-source selective laser sintering system developed

in the Miller Lab
at Rice’s Department of Bioengineering. (Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

“SLS technology has been around for more than 20 years, and
it’s one of the only technologies for 3-D printing that has the ability to form
objects with dramatic overhangs and bifurcations,” said study co-author Jordan
Miller, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice who specializes in
using 3-D printing for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. “SLS
technology is perfect for creating some of the complex shapes we use in our
work, like the vascular networks of the liver and other organs.”

Ian Kinstlinger
(left) and Jordan Miller with the OpenSLS printer. Design specs and performance
for OpenSLS are available at https://github.com/MillerLabFTW/. (Photo by Jeff
Fitlow/Rice University)

He said commercial SLS machines generally don’t allow users
to fabricate objects with their own powdered materials, which is something
that’s particularly important for researchers who want to experiment with
biomaterials for regenerative medicine and other biomedical applications.

“Designing our own laser-sintering machine means there’s no
company-mandated limit to the types of biomaterials we can experiment with for
regenerative medicine research,” said study co-author Ian Kinstlinger, a
graduate student in Miller’s group who designed several of the hardware and
software modifications for OpenSLS. The team showed that the machine could
print a series of intricate objects from both nylon powder — a commonly used
material for high-resolution 3-D sintering — and from polycaprolactone, or PCL,
a nontoxic polymer that’s commonly used to make templates for studies on
engineered bone.

About Me

Graduated from University of Marmara, Academy of Fine Arts, Department of Design of Industrial Products and completed her dissertation titled "A Review on the Effects of the Trends & Periods on the Structural Constructions on the Products That are Associated With Consumer Electronics" in the same department for her Master’s Degree.

Lectured at University of Anatolia, Department of Industrial Products on part-time basis. Currently, she has been lecturing on part-time basis Faculty of Arts & Science, Department of Industrial Products Design at University of Doğuş.

She was the Head of ETMK Istanbul Branch from February 2010 to June 2011.

She took part in many competitions and projects as a member of advisory board and jury. Currently, she is the acting executive officer coordinating various projects between the Industry and University at the company where she is employed.

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